Cameron
Highlands was founded as part of the British love for escaping heat. The
British, in their infinite wisdom, tended to invade hot countries and then
proceed to complain about the heat - and thereby establishing Hill Stations to
escape from that very same heat. Thus was Cameron Highlands created. Of course
in those far off colonial times, Cameron Highlands was infamous for its cooling
climate, insurgent communists and, later, disappearing planters (Jim Thompson).
With the advent of global warming those cooling Highlands have simply become
Highlands, with a temperature marginally cooler than the green, equatorial,
lands below.
When I
had my own Durian orchard, and lived in Perak, I visited Cameron Highlands on a
fairly regular basis. In my ancient Kia Rocsta I would saunter up
the winding road from Tapah, careen around the sheer drop bends, drive past
indigenous sellers of local wild bee nectar, and sidle towards the home of the
festering wound smelling raffelasia plant and that establishment entitled - The
Smoke Lodge (established 1937). In those days I had neither the money nor the
inclination to sup at the pseudo-Western Smoke House, keen as I was to meld
into the background of my adopted country, and wishing to sample not the
delights of Brighton or Hove, but rather of Perak and Pahang. Times change and
people change. Once in the Cameron Highlands I would buy the odd nicknack,
copious amounts of nectar and indulge in a few dozen strawberries - and regret
that indulgence on the emetic drive down. Now it was Christmas. My first real
Christmas for 7 years, and it was time to indulge in those Western delights.
Unfortunately I was staying in the insalubrious Dahlia
Apartments at Cameron Highlands, which in no way lived up to its floral name.
The entire building seemed to suffer from a damp problem and my apartment,
upon opening the rickety door with no bolt, smelled musty. Mental warning bells
had began to sound when I had noticed the septuagenarian receptionist and
piles of discarded furniture littering the building - those bells rang in great
abundance on exiting the lift (on the fifth floor) and upon observing a
threadbare settee - oozing stuffing.
I navigated my way along that
mould-stained landing and, as I did so, encountered several other seemingly
war-torn items of furniture, no doubt casualties from the ongoing tourist
skirmishes. The apartment was ample enough, but the mould
induced fragrance seemed to permeate everything. Bed sheets, blankets and
carpets all smelled of mould. It was all I could do to try to sleep amidst all
that dankness.
I exited
that apartment in the damp evening. I left the kitchen tap, with its persistent,
and damnably annoying drip, dripping. I bade farewell to the set of
tablespoons so thin that Uri Geller could have used them in his spoon bending
act, and wished to regain some of that initial excitement I had upon my arrival in Cameron Highlands.
In a
newly born naivety I sought to seek solace in some kind of sumptuous repast,
and to hell with the expense. The fact that it was raining was not the fault of
The Smoke House, but the misunderstanding regarding the lack of Earl Grey Tea,
was. Simply put, Lady Grey Tea is not Earl Grey Tea. Earl Grey Tea is flavoured
with the oil of the bergamot plant. Lady Grey Tea - a newly fabricated
invention by the Twinnings company, is flavoured with the Mandarin citrus. They
are not, repeat not, interchangeable, despite the waitress insisting that they
were one and the same - they are not. That was my first disappointment with The
Smoke House. Admittedly it was a small matter, but it rather set the scene for
the further disappointment.
Being
Christmas time, The Smoke House was bedecked, not with boughs of holly but with
a sufficiency of natural greenery, dried flora, mock topiary Bambis, mock blue
Delft plates, mocking Tibetan tea pots (which in all reality had never rubbed
shoulders with a Yak) and - poinsettias. The latter adding a welcome familiarity
to the pseudo-Victorian museum version of Christmas which The Smoke House had
chosen the emulate. Gazing upon those red and green poinsettias reminded me of
those years in Clacton (On-Sea), when I would hasten to Sainsbury’s emporium of
all things middle-class (and slightly exotic) in Colchester, to purchase the
elegance of poinsettias to grace my Christmas dinning-table. With my mind
firmly back in Malaysia, Pahang and Cameron Highlands, I gazed a little in awe
at the mixed metaphors of The Smoke House Christmas presentation. Mixed
metaphors and wrangles over tea do not bode well for a forthcoming dinner,
especially one as expensive as The Smoke House Christmas dinner.
Ostensibly,
the meal was set to explode like a Malayan Emergency hand-grenade, with all
kinds of sumptuous gourmet promise. Turkey was on the menu, accompanied by
Cranberry jelly and Bread sauce. I also opted for Cod and Chips - the first
time that I had seen Cod on the menu in Malaysia. The food was delivered in an appropriate style,
with due deference to serving etiquette, but the portions fell far short of the
promises the cost of each item had made. I was crestfallen. The paltry size
of each dish, were as if Dicken’s Scrooge himself were eecking out the portions
at the back of an impoverished kitchen. There was barely a spoonful of carrots,
a minuscule amount of potatoes and hardly four slices of turkey on the overly
small Christmas Dinner plate. The Cod was little better, in a strange batter,
and the Cauliflower Cheese, I was convinced, was but a child’s portion. One bread roll, each, was proffered - not,
you might notice, a basket of bread rolls and there was no butter knife to use
with the meagre yellow curls. This all badly let that eatery down. Overall, the
size of the meal was a great disappointment. It was right then, as we tried to
savour the few crumbs of food we had been served, that all thoughts of
breakfast at The Smoke House the following morning, disappeared. Instead, we
had the remains of the Christmas fare I had cooked and we had brought with us,
for breakfast.
Later, a
customary drizzle mimicking London rain accompanied a jaunt to the Bharat,
Cameron Valley, tea plantation, where meandering rows of tea bushes disappeared
their green way into the distance and fresh light green leaves sparkled like
lights in the occasional sun. The emporium designed to trap the unwary
traveller was not surprisingly called The Tea Room. It boasted of scones (plain
and blueberry) apple pie and cream and cheesecake. Liquid refreshments
consisted of a variety of teas sold by that company, with the Malaysian sweet
Teh Tarik taking preference, for local visitors, over the elusive Earl grey.
A barrage
of wannabe photographers had descended upon the tea room shortly after I
arrived. Their subject matter was not the grace and beauty of the plantations
rows, but each other and themselves. Cameras with short, long or wide focal
distances, ipads, iphones and tablets of all descriptions snapped the
ubiquitous Facebook photos, jamming the free WIFI system which slowed to a
crawl. Fingers pointed to cheeks, chins rested on hands, men posed manfully
with or without cigarettes, children posed with the two finger ‘bunny ears’
salute and elderly relatives looked on a little dazed at all the flash
photography directed at their children, grandchildren, nieces and/or nephews.
After the obligatory photo sessions, young energised children sped away to
play, slightly older children engaged themselves with Facebook or Twitter on
their tablets, while older children and adults resumed their love affairs with
their smart phones. The wonder of the scenery was all but lost on all
.
Time must
have a stop and, after two nights of mustiness we eventually ambled our way
back down those hills and headed back towards Ipoh. Lunch in Ipoh brought a
most amazing roasted duck at the Sun Yeong Wai restaurant famous for its
roasted duck – and with good reason too.
I travelled on, back to Bukit Mertajam and my temporary home. The following day, an inexpensive Dim Sum repast followed at Huang Zuo
in BM and all was well with the world, and that expensive Christmas meal in
Cameron Highlands all but forgotten.
